


take my hand, we'll be fine

by sparklyturtle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Deaf Character, Good Weasley Family (Harry Potter), Harry Potter Next Generation, Next Generation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-08 13:43:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18624436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklyturtle/pseuds/sparklyturtle
Summary: Signs add up in Ron's mind, and he doesn't enjoy the theory he conjures about his youngest niece.





	take my hand, we'll be fine

The first person to notice is Ron.

.

Lilly Potter stumbles a lot.   
She's not the best talker, and she always needs to be called a few extra times. But she is four, and her parents are busy.   
Lilly is the youngest of three, her parents constantly preoccupied with her boisterous, clashing older brothers. She is the youngest cousin, everyone always caught up in quidditch and schoolwork and business dealings.   
Lilly is the baby, the final worry at the end of the day, when everything else is sorted. She's quiet and good, just a bit slow to react to most things, but she's one of the most placid little children the world has ever known.  
Her family loves her dearly, as anyone could see. She's glued to Teddy's hip, wrapped in Ginny's scarves, plastered in Harry's kisses. Jamie throws tea parties for her while Ruby organises her teddies and dollies just right at the end of her bed.  
But no one noticed, all the same. 

.

Lilly is her uncle Ron's favourite, and he has never made any effort to hide that fact. They're similar, in a lot of ways, aside from their bright red hair and freckly cheeks. Harry notices looks, certain actions that he had lived with and hid under invisibility cloaks with. He sees much more than Ginny does, than maybe even Hermione does, because at the end of the day, the pair knows one another inside out.   
Ron has adored his littlest niece from the moment she was born, since her first little scream into the cosmos. So maybe that's why he sees it first.  
Maybe that's why, on his mum's birthday, in a Burrow packed full of noisy children and laughing adults, Ron noticed his littlest niece sitting on the bottom stair, hands over her ears as she shakes her head from side to side. His own two have long since lost themselves in cake and streamers, Vicky having organised a whole host of games for the little ones. (Vicky is twelve, now, you see- an adult and the one in charge in her own eyes).  
Little Lilly, however, sits on her own, cranky and anxious, uncomfortable in her second home. No one has seen her this way, no one has noticed. But as Ron scoops her into his arms and carefully carries the whimpering child upstairs to the quiet, his mind goes into overdrive.   
It's the final straw in his long-standing theory, the last detail in an observational study he's been conducting for the past few months. It adds up, he thinks to himself as he cradles her against his chest, both of them blending into the Chudley Cannons bedsheets. It makes more sense than any other reasoning, of this much Ron is certain, but he wonders however he could tell his best friend that his little girl is probably deaf.

.

Ginny doesn't accept it, and Harry zones out.  
Ginny calls Ron ridiculous, scowling and standing to turn her back on her brother. Grimmauld Place is quiet on a Tuesday night, the boys long in bed, and Lilly back at theirs for a sleepover with Hugo.   
Harry looks almost embarrassed, gingerly stirring his tea as his glasses fog up.   
“We'd know, Ronald,” Ginny insists, turning suddenly, but he can see her eyes are glassy now. “She's our daughter, not yours. I'd have noticed if she couldn't he-”  
She chokes, the words catching in her throat, before storming the back door into the cool night air.   
“It'd make sense, wouldn't it?” Harry says quietly. This is a question to himself much more than to his friend, Ron knows. He'd expected these reactions, as he'd explained to Hermione before he'd left home. He knew exactly what would happen, as he so often seemed to.  
“I wouldn't know for sure, mate-”  
“If we know what to look for,” Harry nods gently, slumping slightly in his chair. “We'll be able to help her. That's the main thing.”

.

They go to an audiologist, a muggle man with a big beard and a bigger belly be the name of Singh. He reminds Harry something of a cross between Hagrid and a bear, and there's something strangely comforting in that.  
Lilly sits on Gin's knee, throwing wary glances up at the man to match her mother's. They'd decided muggle medicine would be more use for Lil- wizarding medicine was so far behind and needed a damn good shake-up, as Hermione had said. And despite the initial protests, even Mrs Weasley couldn't have argued that at least a consultation wouldn't hurt.  
The doctor is soft-spoken to the parents, speaking much louder and clearer when directed at the little girl, but he is ever so gentle, and for that Harry is grateful. He runs a great deal of tests, from playing notes and sounds for her to little puzzle games she seems to enjoy.   
“In my opinion,” Singh tells them almost two hours later. “I say Lilly here has moderate see hearing loss. Which is to say,” he continues at the Potters’ lost expressions. “There is some damage to her cochlea, most likely there from birth. Of course, there are more tests I would like to do in future, but I think we've tired her out for today, yes?”  
He gives them leaflets and sends them on their way with a booking for a follow-up appointment in two weeks time.   
Ginny squeezes their baby much tighter that night.

.

Jamie turns nine on a Friday, and as he opens his presents in the old drawing room his brother and sister sit on the carpeted floor watching, the former stuffing his mouth with chocolate cake and the latter donning two new and shiny hearing aids, one in each ear.   
She is improving, her parents swear as her words become clearer and more frequent.   
She's much better, her big brothers promise as chases them round the kitchen, head thrown back in manic laughter.  
She'll get there in her own time, her uncle Ron claims, keeping an open eye on her as the other winks down at her. She'll get there.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter title from 'Treat you better'.


End file.
